Background: Neonatal pneumopericardium (PPC) is a rare clinical condition usually associated with other air leak syndromes. It increases morbidity and mortality due to cardiac tamponade. Case report: A preterm male neonate weighing 1260 g was born with the gestational age of 28 weeks. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was routinely performed without any medical therapy. The newborn was transferred ...

UNLABELLED A fatal complication of an incarcerated diaphragmatic hernia: pyo-pneumopericardium due to a gastro-pericardial fistula, case report and literature review INTRODUCTION The pyo-pneumopericardium is a very rare complication of an incarcerated diaphragmatic hernia. Usually, it depends on the existence of a gastropericardial fistula and, in most cases, it is a deadly complication. CA...

A 28-year-old Filipino male was admitted due to high-grade fevers and dyspnea on a background of chronic cough and weight loss. Due to clinical and echocardiographic signs of cardiac tamponade, emergency pericardiocentesis was performed on his first hospital day. Five days after, chest radiographs showed new pockets of radiolucency within the cardiac shadow, indicative of pneumopericardium. On ...

A20-year-old man without past medical history was admitted for diffuse left-sided and retrosternal chest pain after he was “told and forced to swallow crystal rocks.” He denied any prior symptomatology and denied cough. In the emergency department, he had a normal physical examination and laboratory studies. The ECG, however, showed diffuse ST-segment elevations (Figure 1). He was admitted to t...

Pneumopericardium is a rare clinical entity, occurring in the setting of thoracic trauma, malignancies, or mechanical ventilation. Very few cases report pneumopericardium as complication gastrointestinal tract surgery. Signs and symptoms may be frustrating, ranging from asymptomatic to chest pain, sepsis, hemodynamic instability, pericarditis, even cardiac tamponade. Clinical pathognomonic sign...

While complete absence of the pericardium is a very rare abnormality, which is sometimes found during a post-mortem examination, we believe that partial deficiency resulting in a pleuropericardial communication is probably not quite as uncommon as the meagre literature on the subject would indicate. Powell in 1869 first recorded a case of partial deficiency of the pericardium. In 1925 Moore fou...